Aanandam

Every year, Malayalam cinema throws Frisbees at you. Frisbees that celebrate life and all things associated, and encourage you to live life to the fullest and with empathy and joy. In 2015, we had Oru Vadakkan Selfie, Premam, Chirakodinja Kinavukal, and Charlie to name a few. This year, we have "Aanandam".

A group of sophomore year college students are planning an industrial visit as part of their Engineering course curriculum. Varun (Arun Kurian) is the most mature person of the lot, and is thus, assigned the task to manage the whole 4-day trip. He is part of a smaller group of friends (the stars of the film) which consists of Gautham (Roshan Mathew), a metal band front-man and headbanger who wears everything black and is the cynosure of female attention; his girlfriend of few months, Devika (Annu Antony), who fell in love with Gautham mostly due to his interests in Metallica and Gothic stuff; Kuppi (Vishak Nair), the singleton who considers all situations comically; Darshana (Anarkali Marikar), a hardcore creative and a recluse, Dia (Siddhi Mahajankatti), the rich girl and the female contemporary of Gautham; and lastly, Akshay (Thomas Mathew), the decent-looking guy who is in love with Dia. The story essentially follows the lives of these seven characters as they set out for their IV with their classmates to Hampi and Goa.

Why the film is feel-good is evident from the first frame itself. Produced by Vineeth Sreenivasan's home production, Habit of Life, it uses a light-hearted narrative to usher the audience into the lives of these characters as they begin an important phase of their young lives. Even though the humor looks (and is) forced at start, it slowly begins to gel in to the narrative. It cannot be called slapstick, per se, but Nair should be blamed if it does feel like the partially contrived story is swerving into that territory. Multiple love songs with short intervals in both halves also points to the fact that the story, if at all, is woven around the characters' feelings and experience and idiosyncrasies, which is picturised in few 5- minute montages. One will definitely feel the urge to visit the beautiful place Hampi after experiencing it through Anend Chandran's camera. And if you are a person who had a similar gang of buddies while in college, it will make things even better as a trek down memory lane is guaranteed.

The cast performance is mostly decent and convincing with the only exceptions being Kurian and Antony, who will need some acting lessons if they are to climb the ladder. We have seen Roshan Mathew before, and he does it right here, too, along with promising newcomers, Nair and Thomas Mathew. The supporting cast is also fine, with Rony and Vinitha Koshy ante-ing up the delight element. The cast is one big family on-screen who evince their cool mannerisms in the right way, ultimately entertaining you with their dialogues, delivery, and air.

All in all, it's a delightful ride that needs to (and can) be experienced by both the young and the young at heart. The lack of a proper story should not come in the way as the film makes it up with short fables about life and how one can live it. Additionally, there is a lot of cliché stitched into the characters with the narrative hitting monotony at parts, but that shouldn't affect the experience either because feel-goodness comes with a certain cost. The cost of not being novel. A pleasing cameo towards the end acts as a cherry on the top of this cake that is inarguably one of the top 15 cinematic preparations of the year.

BOTTOM LINE: Ganesh Raj's "Aanandam" is a feel-good movie with the right doses of comedy and romance, which will lift you up for one full day. What you do after totally depends on you and how you look at life, but the film definitely has few tips. Book a low-cost weekend ticket (use the Paytm offer if you are in Mumbai) and enjoy this with your friends and family.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

A Very Well presented feel good movie, each character had their arc by the end of the movie. This movie is not about the travelling but it provides many travle spots to visit. Too much of positivity around the characters of the movie, it runs smoothly and you will have pleasant smile on your face during few scenes. Engineering students will get connected for sure. Direction and screenplay was very good. Cinematography was very nice. Acting was best to their roles by everyone but surprised by the transformation of roshan mathew in just two years from aanandham to koode, he changed a lot both performance and physic wise. The ending was very good and heart touching where the girl who doesnt speak to any one in the film, speaks to us throughout the movie.

Aanandam is a 2016 Indian Malayalam film written and directed by Ganesh Raj in his directorial debut. Vineeth Sreenivasan produces the film under the banner of Habit Of Life with Vinod Shornur under Cast N Crew. The film features Vishak Nair, Anu Antony, Thomas Mathew, Arun Kurian, Siddhi Mahajankatti, Roshan Mathew, and Anarkali Marikar in the lead roles. Cinematography is handled by Anend C. Chandran and music by Sachin Warrier. Abhinav Sunder Nayak has done the editing and LJ Films distributed the film. Now let's go to the review. 'Aanandam' is such a beautiful, well written aesthetic cinema tale which tells us the story of a bunch of Engineering students and their adventures. The film mostly focuses on the IV(Industrial Visit) done by the students and the little events during the tour. Most of main cast are newbies, even though they have managed to act very effectively and quite appreciable for their signature roles. Vineeth Sreenivasan, the producer, is also acclaimed for introducing new faces to the Malayalam Film Industry like Nivin Pauly, Aju Varghese etc. Now he lets his long-time assistant director Ganesh Raj to the mainstream, while he takes the chair of a producer. The cinematographer Anend C. Chandran has made yet an other milestone in his career using the extraordinary frames of Aanandam. Anend is widely noted for his skills in the blockbuster film Premam(2015). Sachin Warrier, an other talent introduced by Vineeth as a singer through his own film, becomes the music director of Aanandam, who creates a refreshing and elegant tune and music for the mood of the film. Overall, most of technicians behind the curtain have done decent jobs to mold the film 'Aanandam'. Though he is a new face in 'director's chair', Ganesh Raj has marked his own signature to the film by uniting each every threads together. "Aanandam" in Malayalam language means 'Euphoria' and the director and his crew has done a good and decent job to bring it out from the viewers. It's true that this review cannot bring any excitement that I've experienced throughout the film. You can only feel the 'aanandam' while watching this beautiful picture.

This film has my heart .It has several moments which made me feel immensely happy deep from my heart .I became so immersed in this movie .This movie has a charm which is very hard to create but this movie does it very easily .Thank you Ganesh Raj for making this movie .

Grt direction,gud acting,fabulous screenplay...this movie literally has everything....throughout the movie we travel with those charector.. and i dont why tgis mve has rating below 8..ya i agree this movie has some flaws but remaining everything is grt if u want watch this watch it with ur frnds.